Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it
Mark TwainRead
Our best built certainties are but sand-houses and subject to damage from any wind of doubt that blows
Interpretation
What this quote means
Our most confident beliefs can still be fragile and easily shaken by doubt.
This quote by Mark Twain suggests that despite our strong convictions and certainties, they are ultimately vulnerable to challenges and uncertainties. Just as sandcastles are easily displaced by the wind, our beliefs can be disrupted by moments of doubt, reminding us to approach our certainties with humility and an awareness of their fragility.
Themes
DoubtBeliefUncertaintyFragilityWisdom
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about embracing uncertainty in life.
More from Mark Twain
All quotes βThe easy part of being an artist is figuring out the message that everyone else is ready to hear. The hard part is waiting for the proper lull to make the announcement.
Mark TwainRead
You can't reason with your heart; it has its own laws, and thumps about things which the intellect scorns.
Mark TwainRead
To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.
Mark TwainRead
Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.
Mark TwainRead
In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.
Mark TwainRead
Similar quotes
We live in a world in which data convey authority. But authority has a way of descending to certitude, and certitude begets hubris.
Bret StephensRead
Finding your way doesn't mean surviving, just as pleasing an audience doesn't mean twisting your editorial around search engine optimization and Facebook algorithms.
Anna WintourRead
The world is for thousands a freak show; the images flicker past and vanish; the impressions remain flat and unconnected in the soul. Thus they are easily led by the opinions of others, are content to let their impressions be shuffled and rearranged and evaluated differently.
Johann Wolfgang Von GoetheRead
It is for this reason that rationality is of supreme importance to the well-being of the human species...even more, in those less fortunate times in which it is despised and rejected as the vain dream of men who lack the virility to kill where they cannot agree.
Bertrand RussellRead
There couldn't be a society of people who didn't dream. They'd be dead in two weeks.
William S. BurroughsRead
The Establishment Clause prohibits government from making adherence to a religion relevant in any way to a person's standing in the political community.
Sandra Day O'ConnorRead